Helpful Score: 2
For the first few chapters, you get an outline of all the people who are involved in a multi-vehicle crash on a multi-lane highway. It was great reading up to that point, then, the story crashed too! Several of these people are sure they had something to do with what caused the crash. And they obsess about it silently, worrying themselves sick about it, but saying nothing to their friends or investigators, chapter after chapter after chapter.
Helpful Score: 1
Absorbing, exciting and emotionally charged -- it's a long novel that pulls you into the lives of over a dozen characters that come together in one mammoth crash on a motorway outside London. Truly a long list of characters who's lives are cleverly intertwined. (And the author helpfully provides a list of who's who on the opening pages!) There's Jonathan, a sucessful, charismatic surgeon who is returning from a liaison with his mistress Abi. His wife, Laura, thinks he's somewhere else. Both women characters are fully drawn and sympathetic. Another character, Georgia, is a young actress desperate to get to London for an audition for a career-making part in a new TV show; and her agent, Linda who is single, dynamic, ambitious -- but lonely from a failed marriage. Then there's Mary, travelling to the airport to meet her first love, whom she hasn't seen in over 50 years (who is now a very wealthy Yank!). William is a modern day farmer who watches the drama unfold across the hill -- and gets involved. And we get to know a number of the staff at the nearest hospital. All characters are well drawn in a fascinating mix. A wonderfully told story.
